Five more verses.\n
What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? [One] generation passeth away, and [another] generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea [is] not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. [Ecc 1:3<\/a>-7 KJV]<\/blockquote>\n
Starting with that first verse, we have two more favorites of our writer: profit (yitron<\/i>) and under the sun (tachat shemesh<\/i>). They are both words (ok, a word and a phrase) that appear nowhere else in Scripture, but Kehelet<\/i> refers to profit ten times and uses the sununder phrase twenty-seven times. On the other hand, these aren’t obscure things that make it difficult to know what he means: yitron<\/i> is from the ytr<\/i> root and clearly means surplus, excess, what is left over, what is saved. As for tachat shemesh<\/i>, back in Genesis 1:7<\/a> we see under the firmament<\/i> and in Genesis 6:17<\/a> we see under heaven<\/i>. So that’s all right. It’s unusual writing but not obscure. It's interesting that he chooses the sun, and that nobody else does, but it's not obscure.\n
The rhetorical question phrasing (ma yitron) is also familiar (ma tovu<\/i>, mi camocha<\/i>, ma nishtana<\/i> even ma dodech midod<\/i> from the Song of Songs) although… now that I’m thinking about it, there is ambiguity there as well. Rhetorical questions in general are ambiguous, of course, but this formulation is used both extremely positively and extremely negatively. I am inclined to interpret the poetic craft of this piece as using the tension of opposites, you know, and this is seems to fall into that category. In ma tovu<\/i> (Numbers 23:5<\/a>) the implied answer to how goodly<\/I> is very very goodly<\/i>. In Gen 23:15 KJV<\/a> (My lord, hearken unto me: the land [is worth] four hundred shekels of silver; what [is] that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead<\/i>) the implied answer to what is that<\/i> is very very little<\/i>. In Num 16:11<\/a> KJV (For which cause [both] thou and all thy company [are] gathered together against the LORD: and what [is] Aaron, that ye murmur against him?<\/i>) the implied answer to Aaron, what is he<\/i> is very very great<\/i>. I think. I’m actually not sure about that one. In Num 23:23<\/a> KJV (Surely [there is] no enchantment against Jacob, neither [is there] any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath Gd wrought!<\/i>) the implied answer to What hath Gd wrought!<\/i> is rather a lot, really<\/i>.\n
On the other hand, in Gen 25:32 KJV<\/a> (And Esau said, Behold, I [am] at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?<\/i>) the answer to what profit<\/i> (not yitron<\/i> here but more literally what is this birthright to me<\/i>) is very very little<\/i>. In Gen 37:26 KJV<\/a> (And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit [is it] if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?<\/i>), the answer to what profit<\/i> (not yitron<\/i> here but betsa<\/i>, filthy lucre) is very very little<\/i>. So my idea—that absent that havayl havalim<\/i> introduction, this would be an ambiguous rhetorical gambit is… not well taken. Sorry, me.\n
Oh, my goodness. All that up there and I’m only through verse three? Maybe the best thing would be to come back with the rest tomorrow.\n
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Which Your Humble Blogger makes very little headway under the sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scripture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16657,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14678\/revisions\/16657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}